Hello, I was the Nintendo costume collaboration designer for the Bayonetta Wii U port, my name is Yong-Hee Cho. For this blog, I’d like to talk about the design process for creating these costumes.

It all started one day when Kamiya walked up to my desk and said, “Hey Cho. Draw Bayonetta in a Princess Peach outfit for me. Thanks.”

He walked off to leave me thinking to myself, “P-p-p-princess Peach and Bayonetta? How am I supposed to find the common ground between these two characters!? They’re like night and day…”

At the same time, I was intrigued, and wanted to try to design something for two characters that different.

So, she was the first character I started out with. I decided to first just draw Bayonetta, so I’d have a base design to work off I could “dress up” in other costumes.

(Really, it’s not necessary to go this far, but… I wanted to.)

Next, I put together some various costume ideas for Kamiya to look at. Right now, we’re still at very rough concept art.

Personally, I thought it’d be fun to rearrange the Peach look a little bit, but Kamiya wanted it to be as close to the original as possible, so we ultimately went with (F).

He also requested two revisions:

Don’t let her hair down like that.

Attach a Mario charm somewhere.

This is how the Mario charm turned out.

Here’s what Bayonetta looked like after I incorporated his feedback.

I used this Peach to make the Daisy costume (Daisy has Luigi instead of Mario, of course).

The next costume I did was for Samus Aran of Metroid fame. I’m really into mechanics, so I had the most fun designing this costume.

Here’s the first piece I drew.

When Kamiya took a look at it, he said he wanted it to be the Powered Suit from the first Metroid game for NES. The original Metroid is around 30 years old now so unfortunately there’s not a whole lot of artwork to base my design on. I ended up just studying the game sprite and package art. This is how it turned out.

It’s supposed to have more of a retro look. What do you think?

As I designed these costumes, I would think, when we have the player transforming into Peach, wouldn’t it be cool if we could change game play up somehow as well? Then, one day I thought, what about having Bowser’s punches and kicks be used for Bayonetta’s Wicked Weaves? I pitched the idea to Kamiya and he said “sounds good, do it.” The next idea I thought of was having Samus Bayonetta change to her Morph Ball. This, unfortunately, didn’t make it into Bayonetta Wii U, but… it did make it into Bayonetta 2! Thinking of these little extras is really one of the rewarding parts of working in games.

Here’s what the Morph Ball looks like. Those red parts are kinda based on the 8-bit graphics of the first Morph Ball from Metroid.

Last is Link. I don’t think this costume was a grand departure from his design, so Kamiya approved of it quickly. All of these costumes, however, needed to be run by Nintendo as well.

When I gave the designs to Nintendo to check, I was worried about how “kid-friendly” Bayonetta looked. Like, I didn’t think it’d be a good idea to show too much cleavage, you know… but when Nintendo looked at my Link design, they actually suggested to me to open up her top a little more… Wow.

Here’s what the final approved design looked like.

Overall, I think I was able to keep Bayonetta’s personality in these new arrangements, so I was pretty pleased. Each costume comes with different sounds and visual effects as well, so be sure to check them out in both games. Thanks for reading! See you again.

Sorry to keep you waiting… (Wait, we should save that line for our next game that goes on sale in… Oh… a month!)

ANARCHY REIGNS IS IN STORES EVERYWHERE!

We are ecstatic to see everyone worldwide jump in on the Anarchy! To commemorate the launch, we’re sharing some high res art we created. Thanks to @pizza_ichigo on twitter for requesting this, as it makes something perfect to share with all of you! (Click for the full file, but beware, it is huge!)

Thanks for all your support, and we can’t wait to see you online! Let the Anarchy begin! If you haven’t already, make sure to let Producer Atsushi Inaba Follow @pg_inaba and Director Masaki Yamanaka Follow @pg_yamanaka know what you think of the game!

–JP

P.S. Follow me on twitter to find out when staff from Platinum are playing online with you. I also will be giving out some codes for the Bayonetta DLC if you didn’t get in on the fun by pre-ordering. (Codes are US only for now.)

Hey. I’m Kenichirou Yoshimura, a former designer at PlatinumGames who recently turned freelance. I designed enemies and side characters in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Follow @yoshimura256

Three days before I was about to leave Platinum to go freelance, without much left to do, I strolled over to the nearby Rising team to see if they needed any help. “I could design something small, if you wanted,” I said. Then I saw their designs – the art style could not have been further from the Metal Gear universe. Immediately, I slammed my fist on the director’s table. “You cannot put this in a Metal Gear game!” I told him. Before I knew it, my last three days at Platinum turned into over half a year.

I’ve played through the entire Metal Gear series and I share the same impressions as so many other fans – Shinkawa-san does unbelievable character and mech design. I collect all the art books like everyone else, (not to mention that I love Z.O.E., too.) so if you had told me I was going to be working on a Metal Gear game someday, I never would have believed you. Joining the team, I was as excited as I was terrified.

The first character I designed was Raiden’s rival, Sam. The director asked for “something samurai-like”, so I roughed out a few ideas.

A rough design for Sam

A rough design for Sam.

Another rough design for Sam.

He looks pretty naked in the first sketch here. In the second version of the sketches we’ve got him battle-ready…

The near-final rough design.

After thinking over some different styles, we finally settled on going in the direction of that second pass. The key points to look at here are:
-Asymmetrical design. His right arm has been enhanced for faster blade drawing.
-The top of the sheath is structured like a gun from the inside out, again for enhancing blade drawing speed.

I argued with the director for a long time whether to have his base color be black with a white right arm, or be white with a black arm. I wanted the black body/white arm personally, but we opted to go with a white body/black arm to contrast with Raiden’s black color scheme, which I think was the right decision in the end.

Usually we’d be close to the final design at this stage, but to have things be true to Metal Gear, we needed to add that extra layer of detail. Once I got into it, all I can say is the detail is insane! (Every single part has it’s own specialized warnings and labels!) But even going through that process, I can’t say I was an expert on what it meant to be truly “Metal Gear.” I had to keep trying and failing, but by keeping all those Shinkawa-san artbooks close at hand, I was able to accomplish what I set out to do.

Sam’s final design.

Sam’s final design – waist up.

Sam’s final weapon design.

Sam final design detail.

Sam’s weapon “saya” final design.

The sheath was designed by Platinum’s military buff, Muneyuki “Johnny” Kotegawa. Follow @pg_kotegawa

With these designs, my first priority was making sure that when a fan of Metal Gear plays Rising, they would feel they fit right alongside Shinkawa-san’s. I wanted what I designed to be deserving of the Metal Gear name.

So while Konami gave me the green light on most of my work with their initial check, next in line was always a meeting with Shinkawa-san, where he would tell me his opinion of my work directly (which, of course, scared me to death).

“You’ve set my mind at ease,” he said. I was elated.

The Metal Gear staff work hard to stay true to the Metal Gear world; PlatinumGames works hard to ensure quality gameplay. The chance to work with these two different sides of the project has taught me a lot. I’m truly honored to have been a part of this one!

All that’s left now is hoping you guys pick up the game and have a great time.
Until then… Farewell!

A picture of Sam that Shinkawa-san drew for me in an artbook during our meeting!